


Absolute Beginners

by Silberias



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, fluffy and everyone lives because no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dany gives her new sister a choice in who she weds, and Sansa chooses the Smalljon Umber for her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolute Beginners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSweetestThing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSweetestThing/gifts).



> So, TST and I talk sometimes about fic and stuff and here is my little Christmas drabble gift thing for her. If you think Oberyn/Sansa is a tiny ship, Sansa/Smalljon is even TINIER. So here we go, title comes from the David Bowie song of the same name.

He was in truth a little confused with his little wife. She was the sister to a twice-crowned king, the lady aunt to the future King or Queen of the Realm. She was, until King Robb's silvery wife birthed a child, the heir to the Iron Throne. Jon well knew the proposals that had flooded first into King Robb's solar but then also that of Lady Catleyn only to also see the desk of old Doran Martell--the Hand of the Queen.

Before he'd wed her, Sansa Stark was of good marrying age in the South and even Prince Doran put forth a bid for his son Prince Quentyn to wed Lady Sansa. At the time it had seemed the route all would take. A woman as reward to the loyalty and patience of the Martells. It had been Prince Oberyn to rescue Lady Sansa from King's Landing--stealing her from her bower and fleeing all the way to Meereen with her. The reach of the Lannisters had been great, during the war, but even they could not stretch so far over a slip of a girl not yet sixteen.

It has been the Queen, silvery and harsh, who had decided Lady Sansa's marriage in the end. She said she had herself been sold in marriage by her kingly brother. She said happiness had been something she chanced on by luck and that she would not thusly gamble with her sister's wellbeing. Lady Sansa had been free to choose and she had chosen him.

He wondered at her decision still, helping her as he did with forming a household at Winterfell. There had to always be a Stark at Winterfell, and by royal decree she was allowed to keep her name and colors. Always at her shoulders, though, was an embroidered shawl. The details were done in silver against the brown and red colors of House Umber. She fretted sometimes that her brother forbade the colors of House Umber to grace the walls, fearing that it hurt some amount of Jon's pride. He made sure to tell her often that her shawl was enough for him.

The Umbers did not want Winterfell. Jon did not want it either, save that it run efficiently and bring his wife smiles. As confusing as it was, he wanted her. Sansa Stark, who was taller than many around them but still short against her Umber goodfamily. The kisses he earned when he told her the shawl across her shoulders was banner enough--they were laced with smiles and sweetness and they were enough.

They'd not bedded one another on their wedding night--merely curled together and whispered their hopes. She let him thread his fingers, feeling utterly clumsy as he did so, through her long red hair and taught him a little of how to plait it. It wasn't until they'd been settled for some months at Winterfell that she shared her bed with him, and if he had felt clumsy with her hair he had been terrified of injuring her somehow. Without her skirts and shawls and carefully braided hair she seemed so small in his arms.

It was Sansa's confidence that carried them through, her reassurances and kisses keeping him with her. He murmured words of love into her ear afterwards, wrapping himself around her while she snuggled into his arms. Jon and his wife stayed that way for much of the evening, dressing in the middle of the night and stealing into the kitchens to eat a few pieces of fruit together. The walls of Winterfell were warm around them, comforting and steady in the same way that Sansa herself was.

When, several years later, she bore him a son he wept with joy that the child looked like a Stark. Sansa, sweet and good to him despite being a stranger to him upon their marriage, would have an heir that would always be familiar to her. No stranger's face would stare up at her as the boy grew. She was radiant in her joy as she watched him hold their child, while Jon had his guts turning to water at the slight weight of the babe and the warmth of his tiny cheek under Jon's big awkward finger. They named him Osric, for an Umber who had married a Stark once upon a time. Osric Stark, who looked the image of his grandsire Eddard according to many, but Jon knew his wife saw small brothers now long dead--Brandon and Rickon, and a sister she never spoke of even to Jon. 

However it was soon after the birth of his son, teasingly called the Smallstark by his parents and many others, that there also arrived a skinny young woman to the gates of Winterfell. Her eyes were gray as ash, looking out below scruffy dark curls, and her hand rested confidently on a tiny sword belted at her hip. Jon wagered she knew how to use it, judging from how her shoulders stayed thrown back in confidence and she barely twitched as she stood in front of him in the great hall of Winterfell, staring up at him but also seemingly down her nose. He had a brief thought that she looked like Jon Snow, his wife's bastard brother.

"I've come to see the Smallstark," she said eventually into the silent hall, and in the carry of her voice he heard his goodmother Lady Catelyn's no-nonsense attitude, "you must be the Umber," she added, looking him up and down critically. The patter of slippered feet on stone floors distracted them both, and Sansa appeared with their son clutched tightly to her chest. Upon seeing little Arya Stark, his wife sank to the floor with a sob as Arya made her way quickly to squat down next to her.

As she patted Sansa's shoulder and rested their foreheads together, Jon cautiously brought a chair near so he could sit close but leave them to their business. Arya Stark cracked one eye open, staring at him out of the corner of it.

"I didn't skewer the last shit she chose, but don't think that I'll make the same mistake again if you are poorly to her. One wrong move and you'll be Shortjon Umber in the histories." With that Sansa gave a wet laugh and composed herself enough to introduce his goodsister to little Osric Stark.

**Author's Note:**

> How did we like it? Let me know! Thank you for reading!


End file.
